Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger Sympathizes with Lululemon Killer Brittany Norwood & Her Mother, While Ignoring Victim Jayna Murray and Her Mom

 
Murder victim Jayna Murray 


Jayna Murray’s parents, Phyllis and David Murray
 

By Nicholas Stix

Reason and decency would require that an essay entitled, “Brittany Norwood, the Lululemon murder and a mother’s worst nightmare,” be about the suffering of Jayna Murray and the grief and rage of her mother, Phyllis. Then again, such an essay would be entitled, “Jayna Murray, the Lululemon murder, and a mother’s worst nightmare.”

The Washington Post’s Melinda Henneberger writes,

“Does Norwood deserve another chance? She showed no remorse during the trial, and no emotion when the verdict was read. So no, she probably doesn’t. But I can’t help hoping she gets one anyway, if only because I can’t bear the thought of another mother whose daughter is never coming home.”

Henneberger sounds like she’s engaging in an exercise in moral equivalence, which would be outrageous enough, but just as apparent double standards often hide something else, so, too, apparent moral equivalence often masks the elevation of evil above virtue.

Henneberger seems to be saying that Mrs. Norwood has as much right to see her daughter come home one day as Mrs. Murray. But that can’t be right. Mrs. Norwood’s daughter is a sadistic, racist, torture-murderer. Mrs. Murray’s daughter was the victim of the other woman’s daughter, and was, by all accounts, a splendid human being.

Henneberger’s exercise includes a picture of the killer and quotes from her mother, but no picture of the victim, or quotes from her mother.

Henneberger either suppresses or is ignorant of essential facts about the killer’s dark past, while exaggerating supposedly sunny aspects of it. She tells us that the killer had “no history of violence,” and that she “started a babysitting business and had just the day before walked through a rainstorm to retrieve her nephews from school, because their physician mom had to work late.”

Henneberger is quoting from the killer’s lawyer’s argument for granting her the possibility of parole, but lacks the decency to tell her readers that. Thus, unless they have studied the case, they may think that Henneberger is giving them an objective recitation of Norwood’s life, whereas if they knew she was parroting the killer’s attorneys, they’d know to take such sophistry with a grain of salt.

Even so, to paraphrase at least one Washington Post reader, who cares? How does Norwood’s having started a babysitting business as a teenager bear on whether she should be eligible for parole? Likewise, regarding her helping her sister the day before. Her sister is black; the person whom she tortured for 16 minutes, and on whom she inflicted at least 322 wounds using half-a-dozen different weapons was white.

Henneberger even goes so far as to suggest, surreally, that the area in Bethesda, where Norwood committed the murder, was as dangerous as diversitopian Baltimore.

The store is in a heavily trafficked suburban area, on a street The Post called “upscale,” a street where my kids come and go with their friends. They’re mean enough streets, though, that in the Apple store right next door to the Lululemon, employees heard Murray’s shrieks as the attack was in progress, and carried right on with their business.

“Mean enough streets”? Henneberger must have been writing those lines, in order to confuse readers from outside the region, and in order to pander to black racists, who fantasize that law-abiding whites are really all heinous criminals. Those Bethesda streets were among the safest in the region, until Lululemon transferred a black employee it suspected of being a thief from another store, instea dof firing her.

The managers—Jana Svrzo and Ricardo Rios—at the Apple store next door didn’t fail Jayna Murray because they were used to hearing people shriek in pain and beg for their lives on the Bethesda street outside, but because they, especially Rios, who was the senior manager, were despicable.

And yet, what if Bethesda did have “mean enough streets”? How would that excuse not calling the police to try and save someone you hear being murdered?!

As for Norwood’s history of violence, or lack thereof, she showed enough of her dark side to the white soccer teammates at SUNY Stony Brook that she stole from, to terrify them. Maybe, just maybe, they were on to something.

Later, she stalked an ex-boyfriend.

When Henneberger does quote Norwood’s attorneys with attribution, it is their specious claim that the killer is “neither a calculating killer or [sic] a deranged psychopath.” I don’t know about deranged, but Brittany Norwood is absolutely “a calculating killer [and] psychopath.” She planned the murder, lured her victim back into the store, tortured her in a way reminiscent of Saddam Hussein and his sons, spent all night putting together an elaborate cover-up, in which she and Jayna Murray were both victims of two masked men, and then tried to sell it all to the police.

Norwood clearly overestimated her own intelligence. Like so many blacks, she suffers from toxically high levels of self-esteem, which caused her to screw up.

On the thread following a previous Washington Post article on the case, a racist (presumably black) reader, “margaretthompson1,” maintained that Jayna Murray caused her own death. A black conservative reader, gbooksdc wrote a powerful rebuttal to her.

gbooksdc
1/26/2012 12:14 PM EST
I remember what you posted.

Jayna had an _absolute_ right to her life. Absolute. Inviolable. Don't forget, she'd left the store for the day -- Brittany tricked her into returning on a pretense and instead of telling Brittany, you are just short, I'm going home, she returned. To help Brittany, out of the goodness of her heart. Because she was sweet and kind. But some people -- I know them, you appear to be one of them -- interpret sweet and kind as stupid and soft. And to them, the stupid and soft are weak, they are prey in this jungle of a world, they deserve whatever fate befalls them. But that is not the sentiment held by civilized people, that is a sentiment harbored by the antisocial. The pathological.

People like Jayna, regard her as naive if that works for you, are precisely the people that most need society's protection simply because we DO have so many people who are predatory and regard such people not only as easy victims but as deserving victims. Without people like Jayna, we actually do become a jungle. And when we catch a predator, we need to put them in serious, serious check to hopefully deter other predators from hurting more who are sweet and kind and trusting. In any event, I understand why you show _no_ sympathy towards Jayna. Being exposed to so much violence and hardship simply hardens a person. When you see the kind and trusting hurt and killed, you learn not to be kind. Take my advice, move away. Where you are is killing your soul.

I think gbooksdc gave margaretthompson1 too much credit. You don’t have to grow up in a diversitopia, in order to be so vicious. You can be a child of privilege, like Melinda Henneberger.

Henneberger didn’t engage in moral equivalence; rather, she put Brittany Norwood above Jayna Murray. She tries to sound kind and caring, but she is as hard-hearted in her way as the margaretthompson1s of the world are. Henneberger wants Norwood to have the opportunity to kill again.

Henneberger’s problem is not a lack of knowledge or experience. As a racial socialist and disciple of the Devil, her loyalty is firmly with the savage, racist, black killer, rather than her white victim.

It is heartening to see that, even at the Washington Post, of the 18 readers (not counting yours truly) whose comments the censors posted, only the last one supported Henneberger.

Brittany Norwood was a mother’s worst nightmare—the mother of her victim!


[Previously, on this case, at WEJB/NSU:

“Bethesda Cops: Black Yoga Store Worker Murdered White Colleague, Made Up Story about Masked Rapist-Killers, in Order to Avoid Jail for Thefts”;

“Black Bethesda Yoga Store Worker Brittany Norwood is Charged with Killing Her White Colleague, Jayna Murray: Five Videos”;

“Trial Date Set For Britanny Norwood, in Non-Hate Crime Murder in Bethesda, Maryland, lululemon athletica Store”;

“Reader Who Claims to Have Known Jayna Murray, Whose Killer Smashed Her Skull in for 20 Minutes in lululemon athletica, Has Compassion for the Killer, but None for Those Who Would Judge Her”;

“In Web Posts and Emails, Friends of Brittany Norwood, the Racist Lululemon Killer of Jayna Murray, Paint Mutually Contradictory Portraits of Norwood”;

“In 2007, Ex-Boyfriend Charged That Lululemon Murderer Brittany Norwood was Stalking Him”;

“Already in August, Lululemon Killer Brittany Norwood’s Lawyer was Playing the ‘Crazy Card’”;

“New Details in Grisly Lululemon Murder: Brittany Norwood Used at Least 4 Different Weapons to Kill Jayna Murray; Prosecutor: Crime was ‘Pre-Meditated’”;

Lululemon Trial of Brittany Norwood, for the Murder of Jayna Murray, Day 1: The Defense is Not Using the “Crazy Card,” but the “She Lost It Card”;

“The Desperate Struggle of Jayna Murray: Lululemon Murder Victim Tried to Escape, and was Alive Through Most of the Horrific Beating Brittany Norwood Inflicted on Her, Sustaining 322 Wounds (Washington Times)”;

“Lululemon Murder Trial, Day 2: A Bloody Video, in a Tear-Filled Courtroom”;

“The Lululemon Murder Trial, Day 3: The Apple Employees Who Heard the Murder, but Did Nothing”;

“Lululemon Trial: Is the ‘Crazy Card’ Off the Table for Jayna Murray’s Racist Killer, Brittany Norwood?”;

“Lululemon Trial: Rotten Apple; Computer Giant’s Employees Listened to the Murder Through a Shared Wall … and Listened … and Listened”;

“Lululemon Verdict in: Brittany Norwood Convicted of 1st-Degree Murder, for Killing Jayna Murray! Ice-Cold, Calculating Killer Faces Up to Life Until Parole”; and

“Racist, Savage, Remorseless Killer Brittany Norwood Inflicted 322 Wounds on Jayna Murray, but Killer’s Family Says She Has ‘a Heart of Gold.’”

“The Murder of Jayna Murray: Killer Brittany Norwood’s Family, Friends, and Defense Attorneys Made Ludicrous Attempts to Justify Granting Her the Possibility of Parole.”]